


The Green Fields of France

by ChocolatteKitty_Kat



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Feels, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Next Generation, Not Beta Read, Polyamorous Character, World War I, not historically accurate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28757331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocolatteKitty_Kat/pseuds/ChocolatteKitty_Kat
Summary: Beginning in canon-era, a look at the lives of Elaine, Mush, and Finch, along with their descendants. Mush and Finch go off to war and never come back. Years later, Elaine finally learns what happened to them.
Relationships: Finch/Mush Meyers/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

Hello. I’d like to tell you a story. It’s a story that’s very special to me, because it is, in part,  _ my _ story.

It begins in July of 1899. This is when the Manhattan newsies made their stand against Joseph Pulitzer, owner of the World, a newspaper that died out not too long later. This strike is important to the story, because it is how the characters in it met.

There are three of them. Two, who, for much of my life, I only knew by the aliases their friends called them, were newsboys participating in the strike, and one who worked at the theatre where the newsies of New York held their largest rally during the strike. Their names are Nickolas, Patrick, and Elaine, but I always knew them as Mush, Finch, and  Grandma Ellie .

The stories I heard of the strike and the rally were always vague, since they mostly came from Grandma Ellie, who did not directly participate in most of it. She was only drawn into the rally because she was in the theatre when it happened, but she always told me that she wouldn’t have missed it for anything, because that was where she met Mush and Finch. The two of them meant more to her than almost anyone else in her life, or so she told me. Their love was forbidden by many of the people around them. It was called “unnatural”. Love was meant to be between one man and one woman, not three people, or two men. They didn’t listen much when people told them things like that. Grandma Ellie always had her own opinions, and paid little heed to anyone who tried to tell her they were wrong. She always taught me that love was the only thing that was important in life. That it didn’t matter  _ who _ you loved, so long as you were true to them and what you shared.

I saw that lesson illustrated not only through her, but through many of the others in my life. I was always grateful for that.

I don’t really know what the lives they had as children and teenagers were like, but I know that sometime around when they were all eighteen or turning eighteen, they decided to move in together. They lived first in a small apartment on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, but eventually scrimped and saved enough to move into a little house closer to Harlem. Elaine continued working at Medda Larkin’s theatre in the Bowery for much of her early adult life, while Finch worked in a nearby factory and Mush found a job at a dock—although I’m not sure where. Grandma Ellie told me at one point that she suspected that the job had come from her father, who ran a shipping company out of that same dock, but she could never confirm it.

I also know that there were many discussions about whether or not they should have children. Grandma Ellie told me, always with a fond half-smile, that she and Mush always wanted to have kids, but Finch was against it, although she never told me his reasons. Whatever they were, around 1910 was when they first began taking in children, giving them a warm, safe place to sleep. Many of the earliest children were newsboys like Mush and Finch had been, often very young ones, either orphaned or abandoned or rejected by their families. At some point, however, they also began taking in orphans from a local cathedral, where a friend of theirs, another former newsboy by the name of Jorgelino Josephino de la Guerra (although I and everyone else always called him JoJo), had been raised and now worked in the orphanage there. Unfortunately, during the flu epidemics, there was such an influx of newly orphaned children that the sisters had no room for them all. That is where the first children that Grandma Ellie fully raised came from.

1917 was when the greatest change to their lives came. The United States had just entered the Great War—what we now call World War One—and a draft had been instigated. Initially, Mush, Finch, and many of their friends were glad to be exempt from the draft… until rumors that the draft would be expanded began to circulate. Ultimately, many of them chose to enlist rather than leaving their lives in the hands of fate. I’ve heard all of their names so many times, from Grandma Ellie and from the others who I came to know and love in my life: Tommy, Spot, Jack, Romeo, Mike and Ike, Sniper, and many others. Some of them I met—only a handful; most of them never made it home after that war.

Grandma Ellie would never talk much about that time. She would mention how hard the flu epidemics were, how many children came through the house, how many people she knew were sick and died, how hard it was to watch so many of her friends go off to war and never come home, but she never talked about it at length—like she did about other parts of her life—and I never pressed. The only memory I have is a vague one, from when I was very young, of her singing softly in Irish, tears running down her cheeks. JoJo told me it was the song she sang the day they left.

**“‘Sé mo laoch mo ghille mear**

**’Sé mo Shaesar, ghille mear,**

**Ní fhuaras féin aon tsuan ná séan,**

**Ó chuaigh i gcéin mo ghille mear.”**

I learned most of what I know about her and Mush and Finch around the beginning of the war from JoJo. He was able to avoid the draft due to his religious affiliation and work with the orphanage and church, and spent any time that he wasn’t working there helping Grandma Ellie and another friend—who moved in to stay with her when Mush and Finch left—with the children in the tiny house in Harlem. The two of them were there with her, a month after Finch and Mush shipped out for Europe, when she found out she was pregnant. They were also there, another month later, when she received the notices that the men she loved had been killed in action.


	2. Chapter 2

_ I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Charlie O’Dell. I was one of only two children who lived in that tiny house in Harlem who could say they were related to Grandma Ellie—since that’s what almost everyone called her—by actual blood. _

_ My mother, Robin Nickola, was born in late 1917. She and Grandma Ellie did  not have a good relationship. She felt closer to the person she always referred to as her surrogate father. _

_ Charlie Morris moved into the tiny house, which was often just called Starling Mission, in 1917, after Mush and Finch left. He was exempt from the draft due to lingering effects of a bout with polio when he was a child. Grandma Ellie, along with literally everyone else who ever knew him (whether they called him Charlie or Crutchie, the latter being more common due to the crutch he needed to move around for most of his life, not that he ever let it slow him down) described him as one of the kindest, gentlest people they’d ever known, and also as an impossibly strong person who would fight tooth and nail for the people he loved or who couldn’t fight for themselves. My mother was often one of them. _

_ She spent most of her life—beginning when she was a teenager—fighting with her mother, rejecting any aid offered to her by Grandma Ellie, full of anger and impetuousness. While I know my grandmother loved my mother with all her heart, there were also times when she found Robin difficult to handle. When my mother left Starling Mission, entire years would pass where they never spoke. With Charlie, it was different. The only father that my mother ever knew, she loved Charlie dearly. There are few people in the world who I would rather have met than him, but he died before I was born, much to my mother’s sorrow. His death sent her into the spiral that would eventually take her life, when I was a little over two years old. _

_ I know my mother loved me, but I wish that I could remember her. Her face is little more than a hazy image in my mind, preserved and occasionally refreshed by the handful of photographs Grandma Ellie has of her. I hardly remember JoJo either; he died when I was small—around six, I think—and was buried in the graveyard behind the cathedral he was raised and worked in, along with many of his friends who had passed at that point, including Charlie. _

_ I was eighteen before I finally got the full story about what happened in 1917 particularly. Once again, it didn’t come so much from my grandmother but from her friends, Uncle Tony and Uncle Al, who had come to help her with Starling Mission after Charlie’s death, until it closed. For the next three years, until I graduated high school and left for college, it was just the four of us, even after Uncle Tony and Uncle Al moved out. They had raised me on stories of the newsies that they had known and grown up with themselves, including Finch, Mush, Charlie, and JoJo, as well as themselves. I idolized them all, and would have given anything to meet any one of them. The story of 1917 waited until I was eighteen because, during my first semester of college, I had a class assignment that drove me to ask questions I had never pressed for answers to before… _

.*.*.*.*.*.

“Hello? Grandma, Tony, Al!” Charlie called, smiling as he pushed open the worn wooden door of the tiny Harlem house he had always called home. He heard a loud bark and a giant ball of fur came barrelling through the hall to slam into him, effectively knocking him onto his back. The dog weighed easily as much as the teenager, half of that in hair alone, and, despite being over a decade old, still had the same boundless energy he’d had when he was a puppy. Charlie laughed and tried to wiggle out from under the dog as it licked his face vigorously. “Bear, that’s enough—stop it!” he squealed.

“Bear, down!” Elaine scolded, hot on the dog’s heels. Her grey hair was swept back into a long French braid, and she shuffled along the battered wooden floor in a pair of handmade house slippers. When the dog finally climbed off of Charlie and he stood up and brushed the loose fur off of himself, Elaine stepped forward and wrapped the boy in a tight hug. He smiled into the top of her head. Charlie had outgrown his grandmother when he was eleven years old, and was nearly ten inches taller than her now. He had never looked much like her anyways; where Elaine had been all dark hair and pale skin and dark eyes, while Charlie was red-tinted blond curls and soft brown eyes, although he had the same smear of freckles across his pale cheeks. Elaine reached up and cupped his cheeks in her hands, giving them a pinch as she smiled up at him. “Welcome home, Charlie. We missed you.”

“I missed you too, Grandma. Are Uncle Tony and Uncle Al here?”

“They’ll be here a little later,” Elaine said over her shoulder. “Come have something to eat; you must be hungry after that train ride.”

The kitchen was warm and familiar, whitewashed cabinets and counters, worn appliances, a table full of dents and scratches and other marks, every one of which had a story behind it that Elaine would happily tell. Charlie sat down and ran his thumb over one of the deeper scratches, remembering what had caused it. “How have you been, Grandma?” he asked as Elaine joined him, carrying two plates of food.

“I’ve been fine, sweetheart,” she smiled. “How is school? Have you been getting enough to eat?”

“Yes, don’t worry,” Charlie laughed. “Although it’s not as good as Al’s cooking.”

“Not much is as good as Al’s cooking, my own food included,” Elaine laughed.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been calling much; we have final papers and projects due starting right when we get back from Thanksgiving break,” said Charlie. “I’ve been spending most of my time working on them.”

“I figured as much,” Elaine nodded.

“There’s one I haven’t started yet, though,” said Charlie. “I wanted to ask you for some help on it while I was home.”

“Of course,” Elaine perked up. “What can I do to help?”

“I was wondering… Would you mind telling me more about what happened to Mush and Finch? We’re doing a family history project, so I have to make a family tree and write a paper about a major event in my family’s history. I think I have the family tree pretty much sorted out; we only have to do immediate family, not go into extended, so I just did what I could with that, but I wanted to write the paper on what happened to them in World War One. I know you don’t like to talk about it, and I understand that, but I also think it’s time I know what happened. I’m eighteen now. It’s a part of my history, too. I just want to know.”

Elaine was uncharacteristically still and silent for a long moment. Finally, she forced a smile and looked at him, although her eyes were distant and full of sorrow. “Maybe… maybe another time, Charlie. Ask me again tomorrow.” She stood up, scraped the rest of her food into the trash can, set her dish in the sink, and wandered off, leaving Charlie alone in the kitchen.

.*.*.*.*.*.

A few hours later, Charlie answered the door—struggling to hold Bear back from leaping out of it—and let his adoptive uncles into the house. “Hi,” he laughed, dragging the dog away from the door as Albert closed it.

“Hey, kid!” Race beamed. As soon as Charlie released Bear and stood up, Race scooped him up in a massive hug. Despite the fact that he was nearing eighty, Race was still as strong as he had ever been, and easily lifted Charlie several inches off the floor in a back-cracking, bone-grinding, lung-crushing hug. Once-blond curls had faded to white streaked with sand, and had thinned over his temples, but blue eyes still sparkled with mischief above wrinkled cheeks. Albert, on the other hand, still had a full head of deep red hair, cut shorter than it had been when he was young, and hardly had any wrinkles—a few worry lines on his forehead, and deep laugh lines around his mouth and crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes—nor had he paled with age like Race had, cheeks still flushed red to match his hair. He waited until Race had set Charlie down and stepped away to lean in and wrap an arm around the boy’s shoulders in an informal hug, turning him towards the kitchen and starting down the hall.

“You’re going to tell us everything about school, right?” Albert teased.

“All the juicy details!” Race piped up from behind him.

“Met any cute girls?” Albert teased.

“Or boys!” Race added.

“No, nothing like that,” Charlie laughed. “I’ve been too busy with work and homework.”

“Good,” Albert nodded. “Focus on your studies.” He winked and leaned in to whisper: “But there’s no harm in having some fun every now and then.”

Charlie laughed. “Thanks for the advice, Uncle Al. Hey, I have a question for you two.”

“What’s that?” Race asked.

“Well… I asked my grandma for help with a school project; I have to write a paper about a major event in the history of my family, and I wanted to write about what happened to Mush and Finch, but when I asked her about it, she just sort of… left. She’s never talked about it. Do you two know why that is?”

Albert and Race traded glances. Race leaned against the kitchen counter and shrugged. “Probably has something to do with the fact that she doesn’t  _ know _ what happened.”

“ _ Anthony _ !”

“What? It’s the truth,” Race shrugged again and turned towards Charlie. “Elaine got a pair of notices informing her that they’d been killed in action, but was never able to find out any details. Not even where they were buried.”

Albert had taken a seat at the table and folded his hands, staring down at them with a grim look on his face. “We didn’t find out until we came back. Didn’t find out about them, or about any of the others who didn’t make it. And a lot of us didn’t make it… We tried to help where we could, looking for more information through contacts we had, but we could never find anything about Mush or Finch. All we were able to find out is that they deployed to France—we know that for sure—but not even where in France they went, except that it wasn’t where we were, or where Tommy and Spot were.”

“Eventually, we had to just give up,” Race’s voice was low. “There was nothing more to be done. It was like after they left New York they just disappeared. It broke our hearts to stop looking, but it was even harder on Elaine. Not that she ever said anything like that to us—she would never. But you could see it in her eyes after that. Something was gone. Some sort of light. It never really came back. It started to, a little, when you came to live here, but… Never fully.”

Charlie sat quietly. Bear came over and rested his head on Charlie’s leg, drooling a little onto his knee. Charlie petted his head absently, mind whirling. It had never really occurred to him that the reason Elaine had never told him anything was because she didn’t know herself. He swallowed hard, his throat tight, and bit his lip. He didn’t know what to say.

“Thank you,” he croaked out finally. “For explaining. I’m sorry… I’m sorry to bring up those memories.”

Race walked over and rested a hand on Charlie’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “It’s alright, kiddo. You’re right; you deserve to know. They’re your family.”

.*.*.*.*.*.

_ Grandma Elaine and I never spoke about Mush and Finch again—at least, not in that way; she still told me her stories of when they were young, but they always tapered off as they got closer to 1917. I didn’t press. It was clear how much the topic hurt her, and I didn’t want to cause her more pain. What I did, however, and without saying a word to her, was begin my own investigation into what had happened to Patrick Cortez and Nickolas Meyers. _

_ For three years, my search bore no fruit. I wrote letters, sent requests for records, and did everything else I could think of. I even put ads in papers asking for information from anyone who was in France at that time, and reached out to anyone  in France who would listen to me—in my broken French—to beg for their help in my search. _

_ It wasn’t until 1968 that I began to have hope. I returned home from the day’s classes to a letter, stamped with several postmarks, from a young woman in France who thought that her grandfather’s journals and stories from the war may have the information I was searching for… _


	3. Chapter 3

Charlie took a deep breath and looked around. The airport was overwhelming. He heard an assortment of languages around him, overlapping and mixing together into a cacophony of sound that he had no way to interpret. His brain felt foggy, and he was having trouble reading the signs around the airport lobby, even with his knowledge of French. One hand clutched the strap of his backpack, slung over one shoulder, while the other held a photograph. He stared down at it, trying to focus on it enough to tune out everything going on around him. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was supposed to find the woman in it when he could hardly even make out her face through the overexposure, beyond a smile and streak of dark hair.

He needed air.  _ Outside is as good a place to look as any _ , he decided, and started pushing his way through the crowd towards the airport’s main doors. Halfway there, he caught a glimpse of a young woman with long, straight dark hair, dressed in a black sweater and boldly-patterned pleated skirt.  _ Is that— _ “Collette!” he called, and she whipped around.

It took her a moment to find him in the crowd, but, once she had, her face lit up. “Charlie!” she called back, squeezing between tourists and businessmen to get to him. She slipped a hand through his elbow and tugged him towards the door.

Outside, they stopped at a bench to sit and catch their breath. “Uh, bonjour,” Charlie grinned.

“Oh, no; I’ve read enough of your bad French to last me a lifetime,” Collette laughed. “I speak English.”

“Sorry,” Charlie laughed, cheeks flushing.

“Come on. I’ll buy you a coffee and we’ll talk.”

.*.*.*.*.*.

At a tiny table outside a corner cafe, they leaned over a pair of steaming coffee cups to stare at two photographs, laid side-by-side on the tabletop. “That has to be them,” Charlie whispered.

One of the photographs—the one he had brought—was grainy and faded, but the smiling faces of a youthful Elaine and the two boys he knew as Mush and Finch were visible, in front of the facade of Starling Mission. In the other photograph—the one Collette had laid down—were three men; the one on the left wore a different uniform from the others, and had Collette’s strong nose and straight black hair. The other two had their arms around each other. The taller, fair-haired and smiling, had his arm draped over the shoulders of the shorter, with curly hair and a smile more in his eyes than on his lips.

“It has to be them,” Charlie repeated. The resemblance was unmistakable. In Collette’s photo, Mush and Finch were clearly older, but their faces were unchanged from the one he had borrowed from Elaine. “Do you know their names?”

Wordlessly, Collette flipped the photograph over. In scrawling, loopy script there were three names and a date: Pierre Martin, Nick Meyers, Pat Cortez, 1917. Charlie felt tears prick at the back of his eyes and let out a short, half-hearted laugh. “I found you.” He looked up at Collette. “Did your grandfather say what happened to them?”

Her face grew grim, and she pulled a journal out of her bag. “He wrote about them here,” she said, passing the book to Charlie, “but I’m not sure you’ll want to read it. It might be hard.”

Charlie chewed on his lower lip, staring down at the leatherbound book in his hands. “I have to know,” he said finally.

.*.*.*.*.*.

“Pierre; here.” The boy looked up, squinting in the sunlight that silhouetted the figure leaning over him, offering a water canteen.

“Merci,” he mumbled, accepting the canteen and taking a grateful sip. 

The tall man sat down next to him and took off his helmet to run a hand through sweaty strawberry-blond hair. Finch groaned and leaned his head back to rest against the trench wall behind him, staring up at the blue sky overhead. “You get something to eat?” he asked.

“Yes,” Pierre laughed.

“Just tryin’ to make sure you’re taken care of,” Finch nudged him in the side with his elbow. “Can’t fight and keep yourself alive if you don’t have the fuel to keep going.”

Pierre smiled to himself, but didn’t say a word as a third man joined them, passing a bowl to Finch before settling down on his other side. Finch balanced the bowl in his lap and wrapped his arm around Mush’s shoulders while he struggled to eat with his left hand. Pierre let them have a moment and turned his attention to the sky, watching the few fluffy clouds that floated past.

It was oddly quiet in the trenches. There was the occasional chirp of a bird in distant trees or soaring past overhead, but most of the wildlife had abandoned the battlefields long ago, frightened off by the gunfire and exploding shells.

Mush heard it first: a low buzz in the distance, slowly growing closer. He sat up straight, knocking Finch’s arm away. “Do you hear that?” he whispered.

“Plane.” Finch was on his feet in an instant, scanning the sky for the aircraft. “Move!” he shouted as the sound grew louder. In seconds everyone around was on their feet and, as Finch had directed, on the move.

.*.*.*.*.*.

The skirmish was over by nightfall. Pierre picked his way through the dead and dying, helping where he could and searching for familiar faces amongst the bodies. He could see Finch—distinguishable by his tall, thin frame—across the field, doing the same. A groan off to the side caught his attention, and he turned to search for the source. Stepping gingerly over the corpses of friend and foe alike, careful not to disturb their rest, he sought out any sign of life. He saw one of the bodies shift and hurried toward it, reaching out a trembling hand to roll the other man over. By the pool of blood on the ground around him, he knew there was nothing to be done to help but offer prayers and final comfort. When he saw the other soldier’s face, he froze for a moment. His throat grew tight, and he forced a single word from it, a hoarse and ragged shout.

Finch came running at the cry, and dropped to his knees beside Pierre, blood draining from his face as his shaking hands hovered over Mush’s bloodied body. “I don’t know what to do,” he whimpered, tears streaming down pale cheeks.

“It’s okay,” Mush murmured, reaching up to rest a crimson-stained hand on Finch’s cheek. “Hush now.”

“What should I do?” Finch whispered. “I can’t… I can’t just  _ watch _ you…”

“I want to see the moon,” said Mush.

Finch nodded. “Okay. Okay. We can do that.” He leaned down to slip an arm around Mush’s shoulders, and Pierre helped him get the other behind Mush’s knees. “I’m going to be as careful as I can, but…”

“It’s okay,” Mush whispered. His eyes were closed, eyelashes a dark spray across bloodless cheeks. When Finch lifted him up, he let out an involuntary cry, body tensing up before going limp in Finch’s arms.

Pierre trailed along behind them as Finch headed for the nearby hillside, away from the carnage of the battle. The other survivors bowed their heads respectfully as they passed, silent and still, like uniformed scarecrows in a field of death. Once they were away, Pierre helped Finch down to the ground and settled Mush in his arms, then took a few steps away. He felt like he should leave, but couldn’t quite bring himself to leave them completely alone.

Mush laid his head back on Finch’s shoulder and forced his eyes open. A small smile crept across his lips as he looked up at the clear night sky. Stars twinkled like diamonds in a field of black velvet, but paled in comparison to the brilliant white moon looming over them. “A full moon,” he whispered.

“A blue moon,” Finch said. “Second full moon in the month.”

Mush nodded weakly. He slipped his hand into Finch’s, intertwining their fingers. “Will you sing to me?”

Finch shook his head, biting his lip in an attempt to keep from crying. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Please?”

Finch buried his face in Mush’s shoulder for a moment, and Pierre didn’t think that he would comply, but, a moment later, he raised his head again. His voice broke as he sang, but he kept going.

**“I saw the light fade from the sky**

**On the wind I heard a sigh**

**As the snowflakes cover my fallen brothers**

**I will say this last goodbye.”**

The tears were pouring down Pierre’s face now. Many of their comrades drifted away from the grim task of clearing the battlefield, drawn by Finch’s voice as it grew in volume.

**“Night is now falling; so ends this day**

**The road is now calling and I must away**

**Over hill and under tree**

**Through lands where never light has shone**

**By silver streams that run down to the Sea.”**

The small crowd stood silent, not a dry eye among them. Every one of their hearts had been broken since leaving home, many more than once, as they watched their friends and brothers die for something so pointless as war, and Finch’s words brought every single one of those wounds back to the surface and broke them open again.

**“Under cloud, beneath the stars**

**Over snow and winter's morn**

**I turn at last to paths that lead home**

**And though where the road then takes me**

**I cannot tell**

**We came all this way**

**But now comes the day**

**To bid you farewell!”**

At the word ‘farewell’, Finch broke down sobbing. He wrapped his arms more tightly around Mush and rocked him slowly side to side as he wept. Mush lifted his hands to wrap around Finch’s and turned his face towards him, whispering into Finch’s ear. Finch nodded, and a small smile twitched at his lips. He raised his head and pressed a kiss to Mush’s forehead, then continued the song, voice still breaking and interspersed with sobs he couldn’t hold back.

**“Many places I have been**

**Many sorrows I have seen**

**But I don't regret**

**Nor will I forget**

**All who took that road with me!”**

Several of the other men were on their knees, openly weeping. A few clutched at crucifixes and rosaries, whispering prayers to a God they hardly believed in any more after everything they’d seen. Pierre thought of his mother back home. How would she feel if  _ he _ didn’t come home? He wondered about Mush’s family. Was there anyone waiting for him in New York?

**“Night is now falling; so ends this day**

**The road is now calling and I must away**

**Over hill and under tree**

**Through lands where never light has shone**

**By silver streams that run down to the Sea.”**

Slowly, Mush’s hands slipped away from Finch’s, falling into his lap. His eyelids fluttered, and his breathing became short and ragged. Finch held him even closer, stroking his hair back from his sweat-soaked forehead, now his turn to whisper soothingly to Mush before attempting to sing the final lines of the song through his sobs.

**“To these memories I will hold**

**With your blessing I will go**

**To turn at last to paths that lead home**

**And though where the road then takes me**

**I cannot tell**

**We came all this way**

**But now comes the day**

**To bid you farewell…”**

A smile crept across Mush’s face as his eyes drifted shut. As his chest fell still, his head lolled back against Finch’s shoulder, one of his hands falling limply out of his lap to rest in the cool grass beside them. Finch let out a broken cry and clutched Mush’s body to him, pleading brokenly for the other man to open his eyes, to breathe, to  _ say something _ .

In the end, Pierre and another soldier had to pull Finch away while two others took Mush’s body from him and carried it away. Pierre wrapped his arms around Finch and let him cry into his shoulder, not knowing what else to do, or how to help. It began to snow at some point—he had no idea when—and by the time they finally moved, there was a dusting on Finch’s back and Pierre’s hat and on the ground around them. Blood had frozen on the ground and crunched underfoot as they walked back to the trench, silent in the snow-muted night. Before they climbed back down, Finch stopped and turned to look over the battlefield, fresh tears making new tracks through the dried blood and dirt smeared across his face.

**“I bid you all a very fond farewell…”**


	4. Chapter 4

**“Lay down**

**Your sweet and weary head**

**The night is falling**

**You have come to journey's end…”**

_ Finch was not the same again after Mush died. Where had once been a happy, bright person who somehow managed to bring joy and light to even the darkest of days in the trenches was now a silent, emotionless husk of a man. I never saw him smile again after that day. He refused to eat, doing so only at the orders of his commanding officers, and very little even then. While he used to sing at dinner time most nights, his voice now was silent. He rarely even spoke. I heard him sing only one last time… _

**“Sleep now**

**And dream of the ones who came before**

**They are calling**

**From across the distant shore…”**

“Pat?” Pierre’s voice was soft. Finch had the distant look in his eyes that had been almost constant for the past week, ever since Mush had died.

“Hm?” Finch turned to him, although his eyes still didn’t seem to focus on anything.

“Water,” said Pierre, passing him his canteen. Finch took it and sipped before passing it back. Pierre hesitated as he took it, wanting to offer some comfort, anything at all, but came up empty.

“It’s okay,” Finch said softly.

“What?” Pierre asked.

“You don’t have to say anything. I know.” Finch offered him an empty smile and squeezed his shoulder. “Thank you.”

Pierre nodded and offered him a hesitant smile. Finch dropped his hand and wandered away.

Their companies were on their way to a new post. It was a long, hard journey, made mostly on foot—they had little gas left for the trucks, so the few they were able to fuel had been reserved for the most gravely wounded, leaving the rest to follow along on foot. Pierre had stayed as close as he could to Finch on the trek, which had lasted the better part of two days at this point. It was harrowing. They half-expected enemy soldiers to materialize from behind every rock, tree, or building, out of every shadow that moved in the night. Most of them had hardly slept, too anxious to rest. Finch hadn’t slept at all, from what Pierre could tell. Not for a week now.

A few minutes later and they were back on the road, marching endlessly on to an unknown destination. It was grueling and exhausting and heartless work. It felt like the journey would never end. Pierre wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep going with no end in sight. He wasn’t sure how Finch was even still on his feet.

After another day, the smoke from the campfires of their destination was finally in sight, and they all felt their hearts lift. The pace quickened, and the trucks pulled away, trying to get to the camp so their occupants could receive the medical care they so desperately needed.

Pierre didn’t see what happened; he only knew that he was on the ground, ears ringing and head spinning, a sharp pain in his wrist. He managed to pull himself upright and shook his head, trying to get his eyes to focus. Before they could, a strong hand grabbed the shoulder of his jacket and hauled him to his feet. He stared dazedly up at Finch, vaguely aware that the man’s lips were moving, although he couldn’t hear any sound from them. Finch shoved him towards the camp, and that’s when he saw the flaming wreckage of the trucks.

He staggered forward, cradling his broken wrist, not even sure if he was trying to help the men trying to escape the burning, twisted metal frames or to get to the relative safety of the distant camp. He was vaguely aware that he was weaving on the road, not moving nearly fast enough, as others flashed past him, most of them making for the camp. The ringing began to fade from his ears. It didn’t reveal much, only the sound of the crackling flames around him as he reached the trucks. He bent down, moving to check for life in a still body sprawled in the road, but hands grabbed him from behind and pulled him along.

“Run!” this time he heard Finch’s shout, and felt urgency well up inside of him at the sound of it in Finch’s voice. He glanced over his shoulder and saw first the fierce expression on the man’s face… then the people moving towards them, far faster than he felt he could travel in his state. “Run!” Finch repeated. He grabbed Pierre by the arm and took off, half-dragging the boy behind him.

Pierre stumbled as he ran, doing his best to keep up with Finch. He knew it wasn’t fast enough. When the first gunshot sounded—far too close for comfort—he felt his heart stop. Seconds later, he was face down on the ground, Finch on top of him, protecting his head. When the gunfire stopped, Finch scrambled onto his feet and pulled Pierre up after him, once again dragging him towards the camp.

Hope swelled briefly in Pierre’s heart as allied soldiers surged out of the camp and towards them, raising their guns towards their pursuers. Once again, he found himself on the ground, under Finch, as gunshots rang out around them. The ones from behind were even closer than they had been, and he winced at the sound.

“Up! Run!” Finch cried as the gunfire died out again. Pierre scrambled up and took off towards the camp. Finch kept pace beside him, glancing over his shoulder, a dark look in his sunken eyes. Pierre was suddenly afraid for his friend; afraid that he would do something foolish.

He kept his eyes trained on the men in front of them and the camp in the distance, stoically refusing to turn around. Because of that, he didn’t realize quite how close the men chasing them had gotten until Finch shoved him out of the way. Pierre stumbled, barely catching himself from falling, as Finch tripped the stranger that had caught up to them, knocking him to the ground. Finch wrestled his gun from him and slammed the butt into his face, twice, then began to run again, Pierre on his heels.

Finch checked the chamber of the gun and swore to himself when he found it empty. The bayonet had broken off when it’s wielder fell, leaving it useful only as a club to batter anyone else who caught up to them. Finch focused on running, trying to keep track of Pierre and also pace himself to keep level with the boy.

Once again, Pierre didn’t hear the enemy soldier who caught up with them, but Finch did. The distance between Finch and Pierre had grown, and Finch barely saw the attack in time. He launched himself with a half-feral shriek at the man bearing down on Pierre, swinging the rifle in his hands at the other man. The man lashed out with his foot, catching Finch in the knee and knocking him to the ground, but the gun-club that Finch carried found its mark in the side of his face and he reeled backwards. Pierre rushed back to help Finch to his feet, doing his best to keep moving, and they were off again.

They only made it a few steps this time. Yet again, Finch shoved Pierre out of the way, but, with his injured knee, couldn’t get himself clear in time. The enemy soldier’s bayonet buried itself in his back, the tip just poking through the front of Finch’s jacket. He heard Pierre cry out and felt another flash of pain as the bayonet was ripped from his body, and then… nothing.

.*.*.*.*.*.

**“Why do you weep?**

**What are these tears upon your face?**

**Soon you will see**

**All of your fears will pass away**

**Safe in my arms**

**You're only sleeping…”**

To his great surprise, Finch woke in the medical tent of the camp. Pierre was sitting beside him, a crude cast around his left wrist and his head buried in his hands, shoulders shaking. Finch tried to speak, but found his mouth and throat dry; all that came out was a croak. Pierre’s head shot up, and his eyes lit up in his tear-stained face. He scrabbled for a canteen, struggling to open it with his plaster-wrapped hand, but finally held it to Finch’s lips to let him sip from the stale water inside. It was the best water Finch had ever drank, and he let his head fall back into the sad pillow behind him. It was only then that he noticed the lack of pain in his body.

“What happened?” he managed.

“We managed to drag you back to camp. They fought off the attackers, and we brought you to the medics, but…”

Finch nodded—a monumental effort. “I’m dying.”

“There’s nothing they can do,” Pierre’s voice was tight, like he was fighting back more tears. “They say the blade damaged your spine.”

“I can’t feel anything,” said Finch. “Is that why?”

Pierre nodded. “They weren’t even sure you’d be able to breathe, but you did. They said they can’t repair the damage, or even stop the bleeding properly. They didn’t think you’d wake up before…”

Finch turned his eyes towards the roof of the tent. “Pierre, listen…”

“You don’t have to talk,” Pierre said hurriedly. “Save your strength.”

“No, this is important,” said Finch. “There’s someone… Someone who has to know. She has to know what happened. To Mush, to me. She’ll tell everyone else who matters, but she— _ she _ has to know.”

“Who is she?”

Finch smiled fondly. “Her name is Elaine. She’s the sweetest girl I’ve ever known. We met when we were fifteen, the three of us. Been together ever since. Managed to scrape enough together to buy a house a few years back. Took in orphans and kids who needed a place to go. It was always happy there.”

Pierre smiled. “That sounds wonderful.”

“More than,” Finch coughed. He was having trouble focusing. He didn’t feel like he was getting enough air, but couldn’t seem to force himself to take deeper breaths. “We had so many friends there, but Elaine… She was special. The three of us swore to spend our lives together, doing what we could to help others. When the war happened… I think it broke her heart when we left. And so many of us left… We abandoned them. Her, and Crutchie, and JoJo… We had to. It was the only choice we had.”

He coughed again. His chest felt tight—it was the only thing he felt, really. That, and cold. His vision was getting spotty.  _ Spot… I wonder where Spot is. And all of the others… Will they make it home? _ “I need you to tell Elaine what happened,” he croaked, his voice low and raspy. “Tell her how we died. Tell her everything. She needs to know. It’s who she is—she needs to know everything. She won’t have peace until she does.”

A million faces ran through his mind. His friends, the other newsies, Davey and Les Jacobs, Katherine Pulitzer, Medda Larkin, so many others… but he kept coming back to Elaine. To her, to Mush, to the way they smiled, the way they laughed. He would give anything to see them smile again, to hear them laugh… to hold them in his arms. He wanted nothing more in the world.

**“What can you see**

**On the horizon?**

**Why do the white gulls call?**

**Across the sea**

**A pale moon rises**

**The ships have come to carry you home!”**

His vision was getting dark now, but he thought he saw a familiar figure, standing behind Pierre and looking down on him. He smiled, and tried to reach out, but couldn’t seem to move. The figure stepped forward— _ through _ Pierre—and reached down to lay a hand on Finch’s chest, over his heart. Finch heard a familiar voice singing, and found, to his surprise, that it was his own.

**“And all will turn**

**To silver glass**

**A light on the water**

**All Souls pass…”**

He wasn’t alone, though. Someone else was singing with him. Not Pierre—it was someone very far away, but getting closer by the second as Finch’s vision dimmed further. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, a slow, pulsing murmur, not the roar he generally associated with it, as though it was trying to drown out the words he was singing.

**“Hope fades**

**Into the world of night**

**Through shadows falling**

**Out of memory and time**

**Don't say**

**We have come now to the end**

**White shores are calling**

**You and I will meet again**

**And you'll be here in my arms**

**Just sleeping…”**

A smile crept over his face as the darkness finally overtook him. He smiled for one reason only: because he finally saw and recognized the face looking down at him from the strange figure. Suddenly, he didn’t feel alone any more. He no longer felt cold or numb, but warm and full of joy. He lifted his hand and felt it clasped in a familiar grasp, and drifted away into silver moonlight.

.*.*.*.*.*.

Charlie put the journal down and sat back, tears pouring down his face. Collette offered him a tissue from a small packet in her purse and he accepted it, blowing his nose loudly. He coughed and wiped his nose, tucking the dirty tissue into his pocket.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, reaching across the table to take his hand. “Are you alright?”

Charlie nodded hesitantly. “I… I think so. That was a lot harder than I expected it to be. We knew they were dead, but to read how…”

Collette nodded, sympathetic. “Take the journal. My grandfather always meant for it to be given away. He tried so long to find Elaine, but without a last name it was hopeless. Before he died, he made me promise that if I ever had the chance, I’d pass it on to her or her descendants or whoever came asking. It meant so much to him.” She smiled. “It means a lot to me.”

“Thank you,” Charlie said, resting his hand on the cover of the small book. “It’ll mean a lot to my grandmother, too.”

Collette smiled. “I hope it brings her peace.”

“I’m sure it will.”

“When will you head home?”

Charlie sighed and shrugged. “I’m not sure. I might spend a few days here. I’d like to try and find where they were buried, if I can.”

“Actually, I can help with that, too,” said Collette.


	5. Chapter 5

**“Oh how do you do, young Willie McBride**

**Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?**

**And rest for a while in the warm summer sun**

**I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.”**

Charlie sat in the backseat of the taxi Collette had called them, staring down at Pierre’s journal, held in his hands in his lap. He ran his thumb over the worn leather, feeling the cracks in the smooth hide. His heart felt like it was going to leap up his throat and out of his mouth, and there was a roaring in his ears. Collette reached over and took his hand, giving it a squeeze. He looked up and over at her, and she smiled at him.

“Are you okay?” she asked, voice low.

He nodded.

**“And I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen**

**When you joined the great falling in 1916**

**Well, I hope you died quick, and I hope you died clean**

**Or Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?”**

When the taxi came to a stop, Collette asked the driver to wait for them and they climbed out of the car. It was a long walk to the graves in question, made all the slower by the fact that Charlie found himself dragging his feet.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Collette asked softly, once again taking his hand.

“Yes,” Charlie said firmly. “I do. It’s just… a lot.”

Collette smiled and squeezed his hand. “That’s okay. Take your time.”

After a moment. Charlie looked back at her, smiled faintly, and nodded. They resumed their walk, finally coming to a stop in front of a pair of gravestones, each with a single withered white rose resting in front of it. Collette bent down and picked up the flowers. “My grandfather used to come here every other week or so, so they’d know they hadn’t been forgotten. After he died, I began to come on my own. I’m sure they’ll be glad to hear from you.”

She handed two white roses to Charlie and stepped away, pausing to rest a hand on his shoulder and squeeze it firmly. “I’ll be back at the cab. Wave if you want me to come back.”

Charlie nodded, staring down at the graves. He listened to her footsteps as they faded away, focusing on the words carved into the stones: “Nick Meyers, d. 1917” and “Pat Cortez, d. 1917”. After a moment, he sat down in front of them, laying the roses across his lap and fiddling with the stems.

“Hi,” he said finally.

**“And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind**

**In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?**

**And though you died back in 1916**

**In that faithful heart, are you forever nineteen?”**

“My name is Charlie. Charlie O’Dell. I guess that last name probably means something to you—I hope it does, at least. My grandmother was Elaine O’Dell. That one I’m sure you know.” He smiled to himself. “She never stopped loving you, you know. Either of you.”

He shifted on the ground, crossing his legs. “After you left, it was only about a month before she realized she was pregnant. She tried to send you a letter, but… Well, the notices of your deaths came back about a week before the letter was returned. It didn’t make it in time, I guess. She had the baby—my mother, Robin—and she kept taking in kids who needed help for years. Until I was fifteen, in fact. I don’t even know how many people came through Starling Mission in my own lifetime, much less my mother’s. She, uh… she really helped a lot of kids.”

**“Or are you a stranger without even a name?**

**Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane**

**In an old photograph torn, tattered, and stained**

**And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.”**

“You weren’t the only ones who didn’t come back, she said,” Charlie continued. “You might know that by now; I don’t really know how all of that works, after all, if you like… see each other. If you can hear me. I guess I’d kind of be more surprised if you  _ could _ hear me than if you couldn’t. But it kind of makes me feel better to say all of this, for some reason. And I guess on the off chance that you  _ are _ listening…

“After you left, Charlie Morris moved into the mission to help Grandma Ellie—that’s what I and a lot of the kids I grew up with have always called her—and, uh, JoJo de la Guerra helped out where he could, too. When they got back from the war, Tony—sorry, Race—Higgins and Albert Dasilva came to help too. Charlie died before I was born, but my mom always said that he was the closest thing she had to a father, so she named me after him. I’ve always wished I could’ve met him, just like the two of you.”

He shifted, the grass rustling softly under him. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that she wasn’t alone.  _ We  _ weren’t alone. None of us. It just seemed important to tell you that. I wouldn’t want you to… worry. We’re okay. Me and her. The two of us. The way it’s always been. Well, the two of us, and Uncle Tony and Uncle Al. They’re pretty great. But no matter what, I’ve always wished I could have known the two of you. Finding out what happened to you seemed like the closest I could come to that. And like the only way to… to bring her peace.”

**“The sun now it shines on the green fields of France**

**There’s a warm summer breeze that makes the red poppies dance**

**The trenches have vanished long under the plow**

**There’s no gas, no barbed wire; there’s no guns firing now.”**

Charlie stood up and lifted the roses, still looking down at the gravestones. He smiled faintly. “Thanks for listening. Sorry if I was… boring? I don’t know. I hope it helped.” He smiled again, wider this time. “It helped me. And I know it’ll help her. She never forgot you. I doubt she ever will. I know  _ I _ won’t.”

He stepped forward and laid one of the roses over each of the graves. “If, um… If you’ve met my mom, wherever you are? Can you tell her I miss her, and I love her? Thanks.”

He started to turn away, but stopped and turned back to face the graves one last time. “And if you see Pierre… Thank him for me, please? Without him… Well, without him, and Collette, I never would have found you. A ‘thank you’ doesn’t really begin to cover it, I guess, but it’s about all I can do.”

**“But here in this graveyard that's still no man's land**

**The countless white crosses in mute witness stand**

**To man's blind indifference to his fellow man**

**And a whole generation were butchered and damned.”**

He offered a final soft smile, pressed a kiss to his fingers, and brushed them over the tops of the gravestones. “Goodbye.”

Back at the cab, Collette was waiting. She walked to meet him as he approached and slipped her hand through his arm, resting her head on his shoulder as they walked to the taxi. “Was it what you were hoping for?” she asked.

Charlie smiled down at her. “Yeah. It was.”

**“Did they beat the drums slowly?**

**Did they play the fife lowly?**

**Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?**

**Did the band play the last post and chorus?**

**Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?”**


	6. Chapter 6

Charlie pushed his way through the crowd, holding tightly to the hand of his companion, eyes set on the main doors of the airport. “Almost there!” he called over his shoulder. He and Collette broke out into the open air of the city and hurried away from the crowd to catch their breath.

“And I thought Paris was busy,” Collette laughed breathily.

“Yeah, New York definitely does it’s best to one-up everyone else,” Charlie chuckled.

“Is it far to your home from here?”

“We’ll take the subway; it’s not too bad.”

.*.*.*.*.*.

By the time they reached Starling Mission, they were both exhausted, between jet lag from the flight and navigating the busy streets and subway system.

“Is that it?” Collette asked, pointing at a small house tucked between two larger apartment buildings.

“That’s it,” Charlie grinned. “Home.” They hurried the last short way to the house, dodging a car speeding down the street, which honked at them as they passed. “Oh, I forgot to ask,” said Charlie, pausing with his hand on the doorknob, “how do you feel about dogs?”

“They’re great; why?” Collette asked.

Charlie shrugged vaguely. He positioned himself between Collette and the doorway. “Just… watch out. He’s very energetic.”

As soon as the door opened, Bear came flying down the stairs from the second story, barking happily and slobbering excessively as he bolted across the front room. Charlie managed to grab the dog by the collar and wrestle him back into the house, Collette slipping in behind him and closing the door. She laughed as Bear tackled Charlie to the ground and energetically set to licking his face  _ very _ thoroughly.

“Okay, Bear, enough,” Charlie laughed, pushing the dog away so that he could sit up. He rubbed his face with his sleeve, trying to clean off as much of the drool as he could. “Gross.”

“Welcome back!” came a voice from the stairwell.

Charlie and Collette turned to find Albert standing halfway down the stairs, arms crossed and smiling down at them.

“Uncle Al?” Charlie asked. He wormed his way out from unter Bear and stood up, brushing loose fur off of himself. “What are you doing here?”

Albert came the rest of the way down the stairs to give Charlie a brief hug. “Who’s your friend here?”

“This is Collette Marchand. What’s going on?”

“It’s okay,” Albert patted him on the shoulder. “Your grandmother hasn’t been feeling too well the past few days, so Tony and I have been keeping an eye on her.”

“Wait, what’s wrong? Is she okay?”

“She’s doing fine,” said Albert. “Don’t worry. It’s just a cold. Go say hi. Introduce your friend.” He smiled at Collette.

Charlie nodded. “Right. Okay. Um… Okay. Come on, Collette. I want you to meet my grandmother.”

Upstairs, they found Elaine tucked under a blanket and snuggled into an armchair by a window. Her long, grey hair was wound into a disheveled braid, draped over her shoulder, and withered hands were folded together in her lap, on top of an open book.

Charlie knelt down beside her and rested a hand on her arm. “Grandma?”

Elaine’s eyelids fluttered open. She blinked blearily for a moment before her eyes landed on Charlie and a smile spread over her lips. “Hello, sweetheart! Welcome home.”

“It’s good to see you too, Grandma,” Charlie grinned. He leaned in and gave her a brief hug and a kiss on the cheek, then stood and sat back on the windowsill. “Grandma, I want you to meet someone.”

At his wave, Collette stepped forward, smiling kindly down at Elaine. “Hello.”

“This is Collette Marchand. She’s from France.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Elaine smiled back up at Collette. “Did you two meet at school?”

“Not exactly,” said Charlie. “I didn’t want to tell you before, in case things didn’t work out, but I actually took a trip to France before I came home from the semester.”

“What were you doing in France?” Elaine asked.

Charlie got up and knelt in front of her again, taking her hands in his. “Remember a few years ago when I asked you to tell me more about what happened to Mush and Finch?”

Elaine grew still. “I do.”

“Well, I didn’t want to press for more than you wanted to tell, since it was clearly something that was painful for you to talk about,” said Charlie. “But Uncle Tony and Uncle Al told me what they knew about what happened, and… I started doing some digging of my own.” He looked up at Collette. “I wrote a lot of letters to people all over the country, and to some places that kept records in France. Through one of those, I got connected with Collette. Her grandfather fought in the war, and had told her stories about two American soldiers he knew then. I flew there to try and figure out for sure if it was them or not.”

He reached into his back pocket and produced the photographs he and Collette had compared in the cafe only days before. “This is the photograph I borrowed from you last time I was home, of when the three of you moved in here,” he said, passing the picture to her. “This is one that Collette’s grandfather had from the war. That’s him, and that’s Mush and Finch, isn’t it?”

Elaine smiled down at the picture, her eyes filling with tears. “It is,” she whispered.

Collette knelt beside Charlie, resting her hand against Elaine’s knee. “My grandfather’s name was Pierre Martin. He was drafted into the war in 1916, when he was only eighteen years old. He told me that he was very frightened to go into battle. But in 1917, his company was stationed with a company of American soldiers from New York. He met two men there who helped him get through his fear. He told me that when he met them, he understood for the first time what the word ‘brotherhood’ meant. He said he wouldn’t have made it through the war without them—literally and figuratively.”

Charlie pulled away and sat on the windowsill while Collette told Elaine the stories her grandfather had told her. Albert and Race hovered in the doorway, Albert leaning against the doorjamb, Race behind him with an arm looped around Albert’s waist and his chin on the other man’s shoulder, listening to the stories. When Collette began to speak of Mush and Finch’s deaths, Charlie pulled the journal out of his bag and handed it to Elaine.

“My grandfather wrote all of this and more down,” said Collette. “Finch made him promise to look for you. He tried for years, but he didn’t even know your last name, so the search never turned up much. He wrote everything down so that if he died before finding you I could give you this. So that you would still know what happened to them.”

Elaine took the journal and ran her hand over the cover. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“I should thank you,” said Collette. “My grandfather was only nineteen when Finch saved his life. He hadn’t even  _ met _ my grandmother yet. If he hadn’t put himself between my grandfather and that bayonet… my mother would never have been born, and neither would I. Because of his sacrifice, my mother, her sisters, my brother, my cousins, and I were  _ all _ born. And there’s no telling how many other lives were saved by the actions of the two of them during the war. I can’t imagine what losing them felt like, and I wouldn’t pretend to, but… I still am grateful that we all got to live thanks to them.”

Elaine smiled and reached out to cup Collette’s cheek. “If you had told me that in 1917, I likely would have slapped you across the face,” she admitted with a guilty chuckle. “But now… now I can also be grateful for those lives. And I know that they would both be happy to know that as well.”


	7. Chapter 7

Sometimes, a cold is more than a cold.

In the weeks after Charlie and Collette’s arrival in New York City, Elaine’s cold moved into her lungs. The diagnosis was pneumonia. Two weeks after finally learning the fate of the people she had loved most in her life, she joined them, passing away in her sleep, in the same bed she’d slept in every night for nearly sixty years, surrounded by the other people she had loved most: Charlie, Race, and Albert.

Albert and Race helped Charlie plan her funeral. Per her request, she was not to be buried with the rest of her family—parents, siblings, and et cetera—but in the cemetery of the cathedral where Robin, JoJo, Crutchie, and most of the other newsboys that had been her  _ true _ family were buried, and from which many of the orphan she had taken in over the years had come. It was Race’s idea to announce the time and date of the service in the newspaper.

“She helped a lot of people over the years,” he’d said. “I’m sure at least a few of them would want to pay their respects, and she’d want to let them say goodbye.”

None of them ever expected the turnout. On the morning of the service, Collette joined Charlie, Albert, and Race for the walk to the church. They assumed that they would be joined by a handful of others, but, to their surprise, the church was packed to the rafters. Charlie recognized many people, not only from his own childhood at the mission, but from pictures and drawings of past occupants of the little house.

“I guess that notice in the paper wasn’t such a bad idea,” he murmured.

The service itself wasn’t long. Afterwards, Charlie and the others waited at the front of the church while the majority of the attendees filed past, expressing their condolences and offering final farewells to Elaine. Once the nave was empty of the others, the casket was carried to the cemetery, to a waiting grave.

Race and Albert stood together, arms around each other. Charlie stood beside Albert, and the redhead reached out to rest a hand on his shoulder as they watched the casket be lowered into the ground. On his other side, Collette slipped her hand into his and squeezed it, resting her head on his shoulder. He squeezed her hand in return, grateful for the reassurance it offered.

Otherwise, he felt numb. He knew he should be grieving, but couldn’t seem to find any emotion. No tears pricked at the backs of his eyes, his throat didn’t feel tight like he was about to cry. He felt like he should cry. Race and Albert were, although they were trying to hide it. Even Collette was, and she’d hardly known Elaine. This was his  _ grandmother _ . The person who had done her best to raise him. The person who had taught him how to love. The only biological family he’d ever known. He should  _ feel _ something with her gone. But he didn’t.

Once the grave had been filled in, they each stepped forward, one by one, and laid a white rose across the disturbed earth. Charlie was the last, but instead of a single rose, he carried a small sapling bush, which he planted between Elaine’s headstone and Robin’s. He smiled slightly and rested a hand against his mother’s marker, running his fingers over her name.

“Why don’t we give you a minute,” said Race. Albert offered his arm to Collette, and the three of them made their way back to the street.

Alone at last, Charlie found himself sitting on the ground, staring numbly at the three graves closest to him: Robin Nickola O’Dell, Elaine Andromache O’Dell, and Josephino Jorgelino de la Guerra. Three of the most important people in his life. On JoJo’s other side was Charles Morris—Charlie’s own namesake. He knew that there were others that had been friends of Elaine, Race, and Albert here as well, some scattered around, but many of them here in this same area.

“I’m going to miss you, Grandma,” he said finally. “I don’t really know what to do without you. You’ve always been there—my whole life, you were the only person who never left or changed. I don’t… I don’t know what to do.” He looked up at the sky, squinting at the bright sunlight. “I’m going to miss you,” he whispered.

After a long moment of silence, he stood up, brushing off the dirt that clung to his pants. He stepped forward and brushed his hand over Elaine’s headstone. He did the same to Robin’s, then walked to JoJo’s to brush dirt out of the letters carved into it.

When he finished and straightened up, a movement on the far side of the cemetery caught his eye. It took him a moment to find the source, but he finally focused on it: a girl—woman? He couldn’t tell her age at the distance—with curly dark hair, wearing a very antiquated high-collar shirt with a long skirt. As he watched, two boys—or young men—stepped up, one on either side of her. Their clothes were tattered: patched shirts, short trousers, low boots with colored socks peeping out the top, suspenders, and flat caps. The taller boy rested an arm on the girl’s shoulder and grinned at Charlie, tipping the brim of his cap at him. The girl smiled and gave him a little wave, before reaching out and taking the other boy’s hand.

Charlie couldn’t help but smile, even as he finally felt the tears begin to prickle behind his eyes. “Finally together again, huh?” he murmured. He waved back.

Elaine smiled, slipped out from Finch’s arm, and turned away, pulling Mush along behind her. Finch grinned at Charlie, then turned to follow them. As Charlie watched, the three of them faded away into the summer sunshine, almost like they had never been there at all.

Back at the street, Albert, Race, and Collette were waiting for him. Wordlessly, Collette offered Charlie her hand, squeezing his firmly when he took it. “Are you alright?” she asked.

Charlie wiped the last few stray tears from his cheeks and smiled at her. “Yeah, I am.”

“Come on,” Race said, standing up from the bench he had been sitting on. “Let’s go grab lunch.”

**“They say there's a place where dreams have all gone**

**They never said where, but I think I know**

**Its miles through the night just over the dawn**

**On the road that will take me home.”**


	8. Epilogue

**“Of all the comrades that e'er I had**

**They're sorry for my going away**

**And all the sweethearts that e'er I had**

**They'd wish me one more day to stay.”**

Three and a half years later, Charlie once again found himself standing in the graveyard behind the same cathedral in Harlem. Beside him, Collette was holding a squirmy, fussy little bundle, wrapped warmly against the winter chill in the air.

The service this time had been much smaller. Only Charlie, Collette, and a handful of others had occupied the pews, and the others had all left once the service ended, leaving only Charlie and Collette to watch the lowering of two coffins into their waiting graves.

Race had passed away first, from a heart attack. They were told he hadn’t had time to feel pain before dying, but the suddenness had been hard to accept. Two days later, Albert had died in his sleep. Charlie had never felt so alone in the world, now that it was only him, Collette, and the baby, but also felt peace, knowing that Race and Albert had finally rejoined the rest of their family.

“Shh,” Collette whispered, trying to shush the fussy baby she was holding.

“If you want to get a headstart and go back home awhile, that’s okay,” Charlie murmured. “She’s probably cold, and I’m sure you are too. I’ll be alright on my own.”

“Are you sure?” Collette asked.

“Yeah. No sense in the two of you standing out in the cold. I don’t even have to be here, technically, but… I want to see them properly laid to rest before I leave.”

“Okay,” Collette said, just as the baby burst out into a full-volume wail.

Charlie kissed Collette on the cheek and the baby on the top of her head and watched them walk away.

Once the graves had been filled, the cemetery workers left Charlie alone in front of them. He sighed, his breath coming out in a frosty puff that hovered in the air in front of him before dissipating. “I’m going to miss you two,” he murmured. He glanced towards Elaine and Robin’s graves a few feet away, beside JoJo and Crutchie. “I miss all of you,” he sighed. “But don’t worry. I won’t forget you. None of you. I have plenty of stories to tell my kids, and other kids that come through the Mission. They’ll all know about you.”

Charlie felt them more than saw them, at first. A warm breeze brushed past him, making him shudder—more from surprise than anything else—before two faint figures appeared on either side of him, making him actually jump backwards in shock. They paused for a moment to reach their hands towards each other, glancing back over their shoulders to smile at Charlie.

He would have recognized Race’s sparkling blue eyes and Albert’s bright red hair anywhere, and couldn’t help but smile back. The two turned back to face forward and kept walking, passing through their headstones. Charlie looked past them, and his jaw dropped. Towards the back of the graveyard, he saw a whole host of other wavery figures: a dark-haired, broad-shouldered boy, his arms crossed, standing beside a blond boy with a brilliant smile, leaning on a crutch. There was a taller boy with dark hair, a short one with a killer glare, and many, many others. He recognized JoJo—and a few of the others, although he couldn’t place any names for sure besides Crutchie—along with Elaine, Finch, and Mush.

Albert and Race joined the others and were welcomed warmly, with hugs, pats on the head, shoulder, back, and a few good-hearted punches. Slowly, the figures began to fade away, until only three were left.

Charlie took a halting step forward, eyes trained on Elaine. She smiled at him. Charlie stopped, and smiled back. “Goodbye,” he whispered.

She grinned, curtsied slightly, and turned around, slipping her arms through Mush and Finch’s. As they walked away, they faded out, and Charlie once again found himself alone.

He walked home as briskly as he could, beginning to feel the cold through his heavy coat. When he stepped through the door of the newly-reopened Starling Mission, it was like walking through a portal into another world—a world full of warmth and noise and color. A trio of children raced past him, shouting happily as they ran, Bear in hot pursuit—still moving fast and well despite his age. Charlie shut the door and stopped to scratch the big dog behind the ears before he bolted off in pursuit of the kids.

Collette was in the kitchen with the baby and two older children, working on homework at the table. Charlie paused and kissed her on the cheek, then stole the baby from her arms. “Hello beautiful,” he grinned, leaning down to rub noses with the baby.

“Here; you can feed her,” Collette handed him a bottle.

“Happily,” Charlie said. He joined the teenagers at the table, balancing the baby on his knee to feed her from the bottle. He looked around and smiled to himself. Something told him that this is exactly what his grandmother would have wanted: a house full of love and life and joy; a home for him, for Collette, for the baby on his knee. A safe place—a happy place.

**“So fill to me the parting glass**

**And drink a health whate'er befalls**

**Then gently rise and softly call**

**Good night and joy be to you all!”**


End file.
